From this story:
Yolanda Clark, spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, part of the Homeland Security Department, disputed criticism of the agency, saying that the screeners were well trained and effective.
More important, she said, they are “just one of many” levels of protection. There is more robust security than in 2001, she said, including more luggage X-ray machines, air marshals and chemical detection devices.
Her agency, created two months after 9/11, had a rocky start — millions wasted in the rush to hire, reliance on dubious contractors, even an inability to pay people on time, according to several government reports.
Among the most serious problems that were discovered was that the agency hired hundreds of screeners with criminal records, in some cases for felonies as serious as manslaughter and rape. Reports of thefts soared as more bags than ever were inspected by hand. [Emph. added.]
“T.S.A. was so focused on meeting the Congressional deadlines that they cut a lot of corners,” said Clark Kent Ervin, who was inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and 2004.
Ms. Clark, the spokeswoman, said those early problems were corrected long ago. But critics say problems remain with salaries, training and attrition.
The starting salary for screeners is less than $24,000, and some are hired without high school diplomas. People who do specialized work like reading X-rays are no better paid those who ask people to take their shoes off.
Each year, fewer than 20 percent of screeners leave the job, Ms. Clark said. But the agency has such trouble keeping up with those losses that this year it began paying a $500 bonus to anyone who lasts a year.
Ms. Clark said the screeners receive 60 hours of classroom training and 40 hours on the job, as well as periodic retraining. Some 18,000 of them received special training in recognizing explosives and bomb parts.
Yet the Government Accountability Office reported in April that investigators slipped bomb components past checkpoints at all 21 airports tried. The components could be combined onboard to make an explosive — the very strategy British authorities say plotters in England planned to use.
Ms. Clark declined to address the specifics of that report, but she called it flawed.
Passengers have their own tales of lapses. At Kennedy International Airport on Friday, two travelers, Lee and Annie Barreiro of Florida, said that they had recently taken a steak knife past a security checkpoint in their hometown airport. “They let a lot get through,” Mr. Barreiro said.
We repeat: THE TSA HAS ZERO TO DO WITH SECURITY. All the extra hassle added at the airport security checkpoint since 9/12/01 has been a complete waste of time and is getting no better. We are wasting resources we could be using on drastically more effective and less intrusive security measures that might actually do some good.